How To Do Pull ups With Proper Form-step by step

Pull-ups is an “old school” exercise and hard to perform, but many people even don’t know how to do pull-ups properly. It is one of the toughest bodyweight workouts ever. If you want to build upper body strength, then pull-up is a great exercise you must include in your workout schedule.

Pull-ups are hard to perform especially for beginners. But you need to do this exercise if you want to develop quality muscle, strength, explosiveness, and shape.

To do pull-ups for beginners, I will suggest you build some muscle and strength in the first one or two months with other exercises. Then introduce pull-ups in your workout routine.

Why Doing Pull-ups is Important?

There are so many benefits of pull-ups. It is a compound exercise. To perform this, you need explosive power. That means it increases the strength of your upper body and increases the muscle mass as well.

You need to pull your whole body against the gravity to perform pull-ups. So, you must increase your pulling power as well.

The shape of your upper body will be better, day by day you are going to achieve a “v” taper look, which is great, it is also a great exercise to lose love handles.

It is a double joint movement so burns a lot of calorie during the performance, That is why it is also good for weight loss.

Set up and Posture

There is nothing complicated in set up and posture. It’s very easy to learn.

Hanging and Griping

As everybody knows you need to hang with a bar. First, grip the bar with an overhand grip and have a full grip.

That means your four fingers of the palm will wrap the bar from the top and your thumb will wrap it from the bottom of the bar. You may also have a thumb-less grip, but that will be harder to perform. Distance will be a little bit wider from your shoulder-width. Grab the bar tightly.

Then fully hang yourself with the bar. In this position, you will see that your shoulder will be just near your ears. You need to move your shoulder away from your ears.

How you will do that?

Retract your scapula and suppress it down and make your chest up. Sounds complicated! Don’t worry.

When you are in a hanging position think yourself to lie your body on the air. You will notice that your chest is coming up, then retract your scapula and engage your lats. You will see that your shoulder will be under your ears.

This is going to be your posture to start a pull-up.

How to Do Pull-ups

To do pull ups you need to know the proper form of doing pull-ups. Many people think that you just need to pull yourself that’s it “I know how to do pull-ups”. But the reality is far more different.

People do pull-ups thinking in their mind that anyhow he needs to pull themselves up. So, they do pull-ups in the worst form ever.

But that is not the case. You need to know the proper form of doing pull-ups. To achieve the maximum benefits out of it. Otherwise, you will gain nothing but injure yourself.

Breathing during pull up

Breathing is an important point to keep in mind. When you are about to start pull-ups take a deep breath and hold. Make sure to keep your core muscles tight and scapula contracted.

Pull Yourself

Pull yourself and reach the top. When you pull yourself think to pull your elbows close to your lats. This way you will engage your lats more.

Make sure to pull yourself fully. When your head crosses the bar, touch your clavicle bone or upper chest with the bar. Don’t do half reps.

Many people roll forward their shoulders when they reach the top. Don’t do that always keep retracted your scapula. When you reach on the top breath out.

Slow Negatives

Slow and controlled negatives make the maximum muscle microtears and responsible for maximum growth. So, you must control the negative portion and slowly lower yourself.

Completely lower yourself like a dead-hang. Lose all your tension on your muscles. Then again contract your scapula, chest up and repeat the same process.

Tempo For Pull ups

The tempo is very important to know before you jump into any type of workout. During pull-ups when you lower yourself take 3 seconds then immediately pull yourself.

The tempo will be 3-1-1.

During the negative count to 1-3. It sounds like “1-2-3-up/1-2-3-up”. Count that in a rhythm in your mind. Take three seconds to lower yourself and one second to up. Pause for one second at the top and squeeze your back as hard as possible. Your negative will be slow and controlled, then with full-body strength pull yourself.

I hope it is making sense.

Read Also: How To Deadlift Step By Step Guide

Muscles Worked

It is basically a workout of back muscles. Mainly it targets the lats (latissimus dorsi), forearms (brachioradialis), biceps (brachialis).

But it is a compound exercise that means so many other muscles also get involved to perform this workout. Those are traps, rear deltoid, rhomboid muscles, core muscles, long head of biceps, etc.

Safety Guide For Pull ups

It is a bodyweight workout, but still, you need to follow some safety guidelines to prevent injuries.

Warm-up

Doing a proper warm-up will increase the blood flow on the muscles. And the working muscles will be a little bit pumped up and prepared for the performance.

But if you don’t do that and straight jumped into the exercise your muscles will be shocked and to protect themselves from the instant heavy load, it will contract itself against the resistance.

And you may feel a cramp on the working muscles. That is why a warm-up session is necessary before jump into any kind of workout.

Rough Hanging

I have seen many people doing pull-ups like a monkey. They have no idea about the forms. They just hang themselves with the bar and focus only the pulling part.

Even they don’t have any idea about retracting the scapula, breathing techniques, etc. and the worst part is they don’t control their negatives. After pulling they just lose their muscles and get down so fast. By doing this you may injure your shoulder joint and elbow joint.

Variation of Pull-ups

There are a lot of variations of pull-ups and they target the different area and muscle groups.

Wide grip pull ups: Targets the upper lats and rhomboid muscles.
Close grip pull ups: Mainly targets the brachialis, brachioradialis, and lower lats.
Chin-ups: Stimulate the lower lats, biceps (brachii), brachioradialis.
Weighted pull-ups: Increases the intensity.

Conclusion

It is is a great bodyweight workout and it is very convenient. You can do it anywhere you just need a bar or something like that for hanging.

One of the great exercises for both weight loss and muscle building. It is a great finisher workout. You can also do it at the beginning of your workout as a warm-up.

If you want a good looking “v” taper shape and thickness on your back; then you should do pull ups in every “back-workout day”. It also increases your grip strength, builds forearms muscles and wider your lats.